The entire Mom 2.0 Summit space is reserved for official sponsors who support the Mom 2.0 Summit. These individuals have earned the right to be represented properly, respectfully, and exclusively throughout the venue during the event. Please honor the Mom 2.0 Summit, its sponsors and attendees by honoring this.

In fact, Cecily herself wrote about the practice of pimping your personal sponsors at blogger conferences less than a year ago, claiming “conference sponsors are officially on alert” to such activities. So can someone explain to me why what she’s doing is ok? Though she said these events “leave generous wiggle room to allow bloggers the ability to use sponsorship as a tool to getting to the conference”, the third bullet point on her not-to-do list stated “You CANNOT distribute material or swag for your sponsor”.

So which is it? Is it ok for some people to pass out swag, but not others? Or is it only ok for Cecily “do as I say not as I do” Kellogg?

Hey there. Thanks for bringing this up, it’s always a good discussion. The Mom 2.0 Team is still in California wrapping up the event and catching up on emails, tweets and other conference happenings.

Thanks for publishing our policy. We rely upon individuals to honor the integrity of the guidelines and to be respectful of these and all people in attendance.

During the conference itself, we’re focusing so much on producing a great event, so we rely upon attendees to maintain the integrity and spirit of the conference as a whole. All in all, the community does a pretty good job of policing itself, and we’re really thankful for all the people who honor the guidelines, as it helps us create a stronger, better, smarter conference every year.

It doesn’t make sense. Wouldn’t monitoring your event’s hashtagged Tweetstream be a key priority? This blogger was tweeting about her sponsor way before the event. Why do companies like this have the WORSE social media practices around?

I am confused. Screencaps (thanks @ratherbeinmelbourne ) clearly demonstrate that she was suitcasing the whole time, and using the conference hashtag to further her ability to do so. Was nobody involved with the conference monitoring the conference hashtag, ever?

Instead of addressing it, you made it clear in public that you are okay with Cecily breaking the rules. I can’t wait for next year’s summit – tables of people shilling for their individual sponsors and deals. Going to be so fun.

Valid points. We do have a busy social media team who had a lot of legit stuff going on, and we were simply too busy on site to catch this (we had over 100 million impressions over the weekend) but we do take it seriously and will handle it internally.

I hope by “handling it internally” you don’t mean you hope this “dies down and people forget about in the next month.” If anything, you are here, and this site is a testament to the long memory of the internet.

I think if you and your team of professionals want to be taken seriously, you should handle this as overtly as the person who violated your policy. If you don’t that can contribute to why your industry isn’t taken seriously. In my industry, blatant disregard of contractual obligations are considered “zero tolerance”. Anything less would be viewed as an impropriety and nepotistic.

Sure, I’m a snarky biotch and I think Cecily is a joke, but what she did so publicly isn’t cool , and Mom 2.0 needs to address it publicly.

Miss Noir, that’s in no way what I mean. I can guarantee you that no one takes it as seriously as we do. We started planning the 2014 conference this last January,and we’ll work internally to make our policies even more obvious and specific for 2014 in Atlanta…including more policing on-site, which frankly takes away from the spirit of the event, but we get it. Again, We’re glad for this discussion and for GOMI bringing up our sponsorship policy. We hope it helps in some way to eliminate these kinds of things in the future.

I hope there is more done than a few policy changes. Until people see this type of behavior is not allowed, it will continue. Maybe all of your sponsors will just hire a blogger to hand out swag. Wouldn’t that hurt your conference?

Laura, this is the most non-reply reply that was ever replied. GIRL. You are too smart to come here and carefully say nothing but a polite thank you, in hopes of squashing an uncomfortable issue. It makes you cringe — we get that. But you have to actually deal with it. Or it will bite you in the ass.

I’m sorry you feel that way. I’m responding on my phone on the way to the airport so I’m possibly less articulate with one thumb, but I did want to respond. I don’t see this as an uncomfortable situation. It’s unfortunate but not uncomfortable. I didn’t know about it until yesterday and we’ll address it. And I’m glad GOMI published the Mom 2.0 Policy and I wanted to say thank you.

Laura, I am glad you’re taking this in and are going to address it. I hope you spend time reading all of the comments on this post as they accumulate,. While some are just funny, others are poignant and affect your conference. I am sure you’re aware there are many bloggers, marketers, and agency reps posting here anonymously.

Laura, I’m glad to see that you still plan to address this issue, as if you don’t, it looks like your sponsors will. You might want to check out page 3 of the comments on this post – apparently one of your sponsors has already contacted their publicist with legitimate questions and concerns about the “diva cup swag controversy.” Good luck!

She was not the only one doing this. I heard about a private party hosted by Rivet & Sway and another breakfast hosted by keep.com. Price of entry for sponsors started at 35K. Next year sponsors should all just spend a grand on a blogger sponsorship, and be done with it.

Personally I’m glad for the response. Cecily didn’t adhere to the policy. GOMI (and probably others) brought it to the attention of the people in charge. They said thanks, that they agree it’s an issue and that they’d address it.

Just a note on basic customer service, PR, etc.: You can go all day without saying “I’m sorry you feel that way.” It’s patronizing. Just in case anybody is still teaching this line, which is a horrible cliche, as as a tactic, feel free to ignore them.

If you are going to apologize, do not place blame on the customer/their “feelings”. That is not an apology and it’s not a good customer experience. Apologize for company errors or unfortunate circumstances, accept blame if it is warranted but do not place blame on a customer, backhanded or not.

I said this to someone who works at a conference I went to in January. She said back to me “that’s a non-apology. You can’t be sorry for how someone feels. You have to be sorry for making them feel that way.” I never said that to anyone again.

Sorry, too fat to figure out how to post a
link here. I used to not really understand
why CK was so despised, and now I see
why. Her writing is below mediocre; her
personal blog and her babble blog are SO
boring. And she is just atrocious. I can’t
understand how you could publicly ask
for so many hand-outs from different
companies and not be ashamed of
yourself. Apparently, CK and LOLPoet
do not have to work for things, and can get
whatever they want by begging online.
Pathetic.

For the love of god, everybody. Cut the poor woman some slack. She is in an airport trying to get some preliminary response out there in the world so she doesn’t get herself and her con ripped apart for NOT responding. Going off all hot-headed and WE WILL BAN CECILY 4EVAR!!!1!1 may be entertaining for us, but it’s not professional. She no doubt will need to discuss the situation with others involved in the Mom 2.0 chain of command before they take action.

Seriously, have none of you hamcats ever worked in PR or related fields before? The worst PR thing in the world is to just declare Death To Our Enemies on a snarksite right off the bat.

Give the woman some space to do her job. Reserve your judgment for if/when she fails to actually act within a reasonable time frame.

I mean, I hate Cecily’s bullshit as much as the next guy, but really. Laura is AT WORK right now.

I would stand up and give you a seriously major round of applause right now, but I’m afraid if I stand up I’ll fall over. So just pretend. I love and agree with every word you said, and find it surprising (and disappointing, especially from this crew) that it needed to be said at all.

Exactly I totally agree. I hate when people pile on just for the sake of it! I know this forum so I know all of the catladies repeating calls for her head have already seen Laura say they’re working to address it several times. It’s dumb to demand action and then not provide space for that.

What? How is it not the place for her to respond to comments? It’s being discussed here. Why isn’t she allowed to be part of the discussion?

I have a feeling you would be bitching if she DIDN’T respond as well; saying that she doesn’t give a shit what GOMI thinks because it’s a bunch of haterz.

And before you inevitably call me a brown noser, I’m not a blogger, I have never interacted with Laura Mayes and probably never will, and know little of her other than a general idea of who she is.

Oh and as far as her taking the discussion to her own site, I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt– I’m guessing she’ll address it once she and her coworkers decide how they want everything to be handled. Her words here indicate that.

appeciate that Laura stepped up, tho not to the extent hoped for. Mostly medical,
but have done some PR (ick) so get, sort of, where Laura might be coming from.

In future, as noted. 2.0 should tighten up R & Regs and daily surveillance so some
flaky Cecily-sort does NOT get to
barge in and purse/suitcase; again, Laura’s a little bit caught w/trou down-
learning experience. That said, her response is fairly gracious. Hope for better in
future. 2.0 might never be completely opportunist free, but less nit wits fo’sure!

I was riffing on her saying that her daughter needed “to feel FUCKING SAFE, okay?!”

Which would have been laudable except that what she was talking about was not the daughter’s shitty non-school or CK and the Poet’s shaky finances, but that CK’s mum had the temerity to be ill in front of her granddaughter.

This kind of loose behavior slays me, especially when I see how some bloggers style themselves as citizen journalists. I don’t know if Cecily even has this much ambition, and maybe this is OT, but if she looked at the website of any J school, the code of ethics will be on it.

Her brand of self-centered defiance is a hallmark of alcoholism.

And even if you don’t go through J school and you write your way up from the street, or even if you’re just some shambling blogger, the same applies to you: “A man must have a code.”

If you watch a large clip of the original film, he ONLY gets that sh*t-eating grin on his face when “Tall Man” comes out to play. But I’ve always thought Mr. Rogers was pervy, even when I was a kid. “Mr. McFEELY.” seriously??? I could go on. But for now:

Bill Nye the Science Guy is right up there. I don’t think you could put him in the near-saint category the way you could with Rogers, but he’s a legit brilliant scientist and crusader for environmentalist causes who also has a healthy sense of humor and has devoted his life to educating children about science. I’d take a few more of him.

I love mine, or should I say loved it, until I had a baby and became incapable of wearing one (and YES I tried size 2 and the damn thing is still leaking everywhere). WEAR YOUR DIVA CUPS WHILE YOU MAY, HAMCATS. TMI, so sorry, so fat.

Tip of the day: get yourself fitted for a diaphragm and try using that (for limited amounts of time). You can even get fitted at Planned Parenthood! I tried an Instead once and it was comically not even the right size.

SECOND just using your diaphragm!! Mine works great after 2 kids and 20 extra lbs. It’s only good for about 2 hours on heavy flow days, but since you don’t need any other equipment, it’s super duper easy to deal with. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

I don’t get this. The hugest tampon HAS to be able to handle 2 hours and soak it all in right?. A diaphragm would only “hold” that two hours and spill it all out when you go to change it. Or am I wrong? I admittedly have diaphragm issues from way, way (keep going) way back.

Not sure what the question is… yes, it spills out when you remove the diaphragm, but also would with the Diva Cup (you’ll want to do that at home, not at work). A diaphragm doesn’t hold as much liquid, which is why you shouldn’t wear it as long, but because it’s fitted, I have way less problem with leaking than I do with tampons.

Diva Cup gets all the press and is the one I see in stores but there are plenty of other brands out there–I started with a Diva Cup and liked it, now use Lunette which I love even more. Bonus–you can get it in different colors, and the storage bag is much prettier. It’s worth it to look around online–could be one of the lesser-known brands works out better for you.

This is way TMI, but I had the same problem after delivering a 10lb 2oz baby (yep, I’m including those 2oz, because I fucking earned it). A friend suggested turning the Size 2 Diva inside out. I don’t know why that works better, but it does. Stays in place better; no leaking. And my first post-baby periods were…unfortunate.

I said this before in the Cecily forum thread..but seriously, why is Laura Mayes (owner / head of Mom2Summit) allowing Cesspool to do this shit? Laura has a lot LOT to lose by upsetting her major sponsors. I am sure they’ve noted the brash #mom2summit hijacking tweets from Cess begging people to come get a Diva Cup. (I’ve been a conference sponsor several times – we spoke to the organizers when we saw suitcasers). I can see why Laura would allow Cess to be on a panel with Bossy – to throw them a bone and avoid some shitshow post on Babble, as Freckles said…especially since it was dead last and had little chance of attendance. But to overlook something like suitcasing is BEYOND stupid for Laura who otherwise seems pretty shrewd in her business practices.